Wednesday May 13, 2026
CalTrout —
This June, CalTrout will be in the Los Angeles Superior Court defending a landmark listing of Southern California steelhead as endangered under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA). We are fighting alongside our partners at the Center for Biological Diversity and the Wishtoyo Foundation on behalf of the fish that can’t speak for themselves and the communities that rely on them.
A Species on the Brink
Oncorhynchus mykiss, the species that gives us both rainbow trout and steelhead, is one of the most ecologically and culturally significant fish in California. In Southern California, steelhead once returned each fall to rivers that cut through chaparral and canyon country, connecting the mountains to the sea. They are a keystone species: their bodies carry marine nutrients deep into inland watersheds, feeding entire riparian ecosystems upon their return.
Today, that ecological legacy is under threat. Southern steelhead have disappeared from roughly 60% of the watersheds they historically occupied in Southern California. In key rivers, annual returns now number in the single digits. The species faces an unrelenting barrage of threats: loss and degradation of stream habitat, excessive water diversions, the genetic homogenization caused by hatchery operations, barriers to migration, along with the compounding blows of drought, wildfire, and rising temperatures driven by climate change.